


will always find your way to southern hands

by tinypi



Series: dadwood AU [8]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Actual Best Boyfriend Geoff, Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, M/M, Single Dad Ryan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 14:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7390354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypi/pseuds/tinypi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Geoff can’t possibly imagine a good reason for Gavin's teacher to call them three hours before the class trip to the zoo is supposed to be over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	will always find your way to southern hands

Geoff’s almost out the door, patting his pockets for phone, wallet and keys, when the phone inside the house starts ringing. He hesitates, because he really does need to go and pick up Lindsay, but then jogs back inside and picks up on the fifth ring.  
  
He’s made fun of Ryan for having an actual, real landline on several occasions, but the simple reason for its existence is that the kids can easily memorize the number. If nobody is home, the call is automatically rerouted to Ryan’s mobile after a given number of rings. Since Ryan is on the other side of the country for the week, Geoff figures he’ll spare him the trouble.  
  
“Geoff Ramsey.”  
  
“ _Hi, Geoff. This is Tyler Coe, Gavin’s teacher_.”  
  
“Uh yeah, hi. What’s up?” Geoff’s stomach drops. He’s only met Tyler once, but he knows enough about him from Gavin (he likes him better than his previous teacher, Melinda, but not as much as he liked Nancy). The thing is, Geoff can’t possibly imagine a good reason for Tyler to call them three hours before the class trip to the zoo is supposed to be over.  
  
“ _Listen, there was an accident today. Gav-_ ”  
  
“Oh god, please tell me he’s okay, please,” Geoff interrupts, heart instantly in his throat and feeling ready to throw up on the spot.  
  
“ _Geoff, it’s okay, calm down. Gavin will be fine_.”  
  
“Oh, thank fuck.” Geoff sags against the wall next to him, air rushing out in a shaky breath.  
  
“ _Now, we were having lunch and a few of the kids were running around on the playground and Gavin fell off the monkey bars. We’re pretty sure he broke his arm, so we called an ambulance and they just whisked him away to the ER_ ,” Tyler quickly relays.  
  
“Wait, what, you sent him off _alone_? To the hospital?” Geoff almost shouts into the phone.  
  
“ _No, no- our class just got a trainee, Mariel, she’s with him. But you’ll still want to get to the hospital ASAP, Gavin’s gonna want you there. They’re taking him to Austin State_.”  
  
“Alright, yeah, I’m on my way. Thanks for calling,” Geoff says and barrels out of the door before Tyler has the chance to say goodbye.  
  
He picks up Lindsay in record time and explains what’s happened in the car - as expected, she is fully on board with going to the hospital to check up on her little brother.  
  
They’re half-running into the ER, which is loud and full. There’s a large waiting area, a few closed off rooms and further ahead there are a bunch of beds, some curtained off and some with patients sitting on them. It’s overwhelming and loud and there’s people everywhere, shouting to one another and Geoff can hardly think of an environment that would be scarier to a six-year-old who just broke his arm.  
  
Before they can make it to the desk, a young woman with brown hair intercepts them. “Hey, you’re- you’re Lindsay, right? Gavin’s sister?” Lindsay looks up at Geoff, unsure, but he nods quickly.  
  
“Yeah, are you the trainee? Uh, Marcy?”  
  
“Mariel. You must be Ryan, right?” She holds out a hand, which Geoff quickly shakes.  
  
“I’m Geoff,” he says, not bothering to explain any further. “Where’s--?”  
  
“They took Gavin to one of the beds. I wanted to go with, but they said only family members and I’m just a trainee, so-” Mariel starts, apology clear in her eyes.  
  
“It’s okay, just- he’s back there?”  
  
Mariel nods and Geoff takes Lindsay’s hand and starts towards the row of beds. They pass three beds - two unoccupied, one with a girl who’s bleeding from a gash on her head - before a nurse steps in front of him.  
  
“I’m sorry sir, you can’t just be here. Do you have family here?”  
  
“Yes, I’m looking for Gavin Haywood, dirty blond hair, ‘bout yea high. He’s here somewhere,” Geoff answers distractedly, looking around the room when both Lindsay and he hear an achingly familiar voice cry _‘I want my dad’_.  
  
Lindsay, all of her protective big sister instincts kicking in, tears off in the direction, checking behind curtains on the way. Geoff makes to follow her, but is stopped by the nurse once more.  
  
“Sir, are you family?”  
  
“Well, not - technically, no, but she’s his sister and I’m, uh-”  
  
Somewhere ahead of them, Gavin cries out again and Geoff surges past the nurse just as Lindsay finds the right bed. She rips the curtain aside and there’s Gavin, a tiny boy lost on a huge sterile bed. He sees Lindsay, then Geoff and immediately reaches towards him with his good arm, his feet wriggling as he cries a litany of _‘Dad, Dad, Dad’_ and Geoff swears his heart actually stops.  
  
In a second, he’s at his kids’ sides. He puts a large hand on Gavin’s back and pulls him forward, pressing the tear-streaked face to his chest, careful to avoid jostling the arm that lies awkwardly against Gavin’s side. Gavin clings to his shirt, hiccuping sobs mixed with the occasional mumble of _‘Dad’_. Geoff’s holding Lindsay, who has both hands fisted in Gavin’s shorts, by his side while pressing kisses into Gavin’s hair.  
  
“It’s okay bud, we’re here, it’ll be fine, yeah? We’re here now. We’re here.”

  
\-----

  
Many, many hours later, Gavin has finally passed out due to a mixture of pain meds and sheer exhaustion. His left arm is in a bright green cast that both Geoff and Lindsay have already drawn dinosaurs on - Lindsay a Velociraptor, because it’s her favourite and Geoff a Brontosaurus, because it’s Gavin’s favourite.  
  
Geoff gently pries his mobile out of Gavin’s lax hand, shutting off the speaker function as he slips out of the bedroom.  
  
“Hey, babe. Gav finally fell asleep.”  
  
At the other end of the call, Ryan lets out a sigh of relief. “ _Good, that’s good. I’ll be on my flight soon. How are_ you _holding up, anyway_?”  
  
“Me?” Geoff breathes out in surprise. “I’m fine. I’m- well, better than Gav, at any rate. Bit shaken, you know, but who wouldn’t be.”  
  
“ _Yeah, I know what you mean._ ”  
  
Geoff hesitates. “He called me ‘Dad’ today. At the hospital. I thought he was asking me to get you at first, but he looked directly at me and he called me Dad.”  
  
“ _So?_ ”  
  
“So?! So he’s never done that before,” Geoff whisper-shouts, very aware of the sleeping child just behind the door he’s leaning against.  
  
“ _Geoff. You know how, ever since I got Lindsay and Gavin, I say that this family is the best thing that’s ever happened to me?_ ” Ryan explains patiently.  
  
“Well, yeah, of course. They’re amazing.”  
  
“ _Right, but so are you. You’re as much a part of this family that I keep gushing about and just as much their father as I am. Get it through that thick skull of yours._ ” Ryan laughs at Geoff’s stunned silence, like he hasn’t just cured Geoff of any sickness he could ever have with just three sentences. “ _Anyway, I’m at security now. See you soon, love you._ ”  
  
“Love you, too,” Geoff croaks back, softly knocking his head against the wall.  
  
“I could use a drink,” Lindsay says from beside him and to Geoff’s credit he only jumps a little.  
  
“You and me both, kid.” He leads the way to the kitchen and procures two cans of coke (none of them diet, because thankfully the kids don’t take after Ryan on this matter, the heathen). Lindsay would never be allowed to drink coke at this time if it were a normal day, but it’s not, so fuck it.  
  
She hops up onto the kitchen counter, clinking their cans together and for a few minutes they just sip their cokes in silence.  
  
“It’s important to you,” Lindsay says eventually. “That Gavvy called you Dad.” Geoff looks at her curiously and she shrugs. “Heard you talking on the phone.”  
  
“Ah, well. You know I love you guys, right? All three of you.” Lindsay nods. “So Gav calling me ‘Dad’ shows me that he knows that, too. Makes me happy.”  
  
She ponders this answer for a while. “Do you want me to call you that, too?”  
  
“Only if you want to.” He boops her nose with his can and she giggles, rubbing away the drops of condensation that cling to her skin. “You can call me whatever you like and I’ll love you just the same.”  
  
Lindsay nods, but she squirms a bit, so Geoff knows something is still bothering her. “What’s on your mind, kid?” He prompts gently.  
  
“It’s just, we talked about families in class last month, and how they’re all different, right. And I said I have a brother and a father and a Geoff. And Ashley asked what a Geoff is, so I said it’s like a father but with a moustache, yeah?”  
  
Geoff nods encouragingly, focussing very hard on not melting into a gooey puddle right then and there.  
  
“But then Brandon said that his mum said that a good family has to have a mum and a dad. Is that true?”  
  
“Well, what do you think?”  
  
“I dunno.” Lindsay shrugs. “I think we’re pretty great and we have no mum in our family. And Jeremy, you know, from Gav’s class, he only has one mum, but Miss Dooley is awesome and she makes really good cookies and Jeremy loves her a lot. So I’m not so sure about what Brandon’s mum said.”  
  
Geoff nods slowly, thinking about his answer for a moment as he empties his can of coke.  
  
“Well, there are some people, like Brandon’s mum, who think that it’s very important to keep up with a bunch of traditions. And yeah, there’s many traditions that are really cool, like fireworks on the Fourth of July, but there are others that can hurt whole groups of people if we don’t change them at least a bit. And I think that goes for the ‘Mum and Dad’ family tradition, too."  
  
Lindsay considers this for a while, then nods thoughtfully and Geoff is mostly just glad that he doesn’t appear to have to explain the finer points of homophobia to his one kid on the same day that the other kid broke his arm.  
  
She hands him her empty can and somehow burps and yawns at the same time.  
  
“You wanna sleep in the big bed with Gav and me?” He knows that Lindsay definitely considers herself Too Old™ for sleeping in her Dad’s bed, but considering the circumstances, she nods pretty quickly anyway.  
  
“Lead the way,” her nose scrunches in concentration, “old man.”  
  
Geoff cringes. “Maybe we can work on that.”  
  
“Sure thing, pops.”

 

\-----

 

Ryan returns home at 4 in the morning to find both of his children cuddled up to Geoff’s side in their bed.  
  
Lindsay is in the middle, one hand holding onto Geoff’s arm above her and the other fisted in Gavin’s shirt, while Gavin himself has his cast arm flung out to the side and is using Geoff’s wrist as a pillow.  
  
Ryan carefully scoops Gavin up, lying down in his place instead and arranging his still sleeping son half on top of his chest and half between him and Lindsay.  
  
He presses a kiss to Geoff’s wrist, who wakes up and smiles drowsily at him, carding a hand through Ryan’s hair.  
  
“You’re back,” Geoff whispers in the dark and Ryan smiles.  
  
“Where else would I be?”


End file.
